Musical Excellence

One aspect of musical excellence has often been taken to be a highly accurate reproduction of the sequence of instructions that constitutes a musical score. It is expected of contemporary classical concert pianists that they play exactly the notes prescribed by a composer. In other cultural contexts (for example, jazz), exact reproduction is given no particular value, and may even be ascribed a negative value. The excellent musician is one who departs from exact reproduction in interesting and appropriate ways.
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John Sloboda. Department Of Psychology, University of Keele